Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities
Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities
Printer-friendly versionALA participants will interact with and learn from these nationally recognized higher education leaders in interactive class sessions and one-on-one consultations:
Mary J. Allen, Ph.D. is a consultant in higher education, specializing in assessment and accreditation. She is the former director of the California State University Institute for Teaching & Learning and a professor emerita of Psychology from California State University, Bakersfield. Mary has published books on the assessment of academic programs and general education, and she has offered assessment presentations and workshops at AAHE, AAC&U, SACS, and WASC conferences. She is a sought after speaker, consultant, and workshop presenter and has worked with over 120 colleges, universities, and college systems.
Amy Driscoll was former director of teaching, learning, and assessment at California State University, Monterey Bay, where she developed an institutional approach to outcomes-based education. Prior to that she served as the director of community/university partnerships at Portland State University, where she initiated community-based learning and community Capstones. She has presented at AAC&U conferences and the National Assessment Institute and has mentored more than 60 institutions in assessment. Her books include Taking Ownership of Accreditation: Processes That Promote Institutional Improvement and Faculty Engagement (Driscoll & Cordero de Noriega, 2006), and From Outcomes-based Assessment to Learner-centered Education (Driscoll & Wood, 2007).
Trudy Banta is professor of higher education and senior advisor to the chancellor for academic planning and evaluation at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Recipient of 8 national awards for her work, she has developed and coordinated 22 national conferences and 15 international conferences on the topic of assessing quality in higher education. She has consulted with faculty and administrators in 47 states, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates and has by invitation addressed national conferences on outcomes assessment in Australia, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, and Spain. Dr. Banta has edited 16 published volumes on assessment, contributed 27 chapters to published works, and written more than 200 articles and reports. She is the founding editor of Assessment Update, a bimonthly periodical published since 1989.
Dr. Barbara Beno has served as the chief executive officer of the ACCJC since August 2001. She came to the Commission with extensive experience in higher education. Her positions include 12 years as president of Vista Community College in Berkeley, CA; assistant chancellor for educational policy and human resources; director of research and panning; and university faculty member. She served as the founding president of the Research and Planning Group, the state-wide community college researchers' association; and she has served as a commissioner for both the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges and the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of WASC.
Marilee Bresciani, Ph.D. is professor of postsecondary education leadership at San Diego State University, where she coordinates several graduate programs in higher education. She served as assistant vice president for institutional assessment at Texas A&M University and as director of assessment at North Carolina State University. She has led reforms in outcomes-based assessment program review, assessment of general education, quality enhancement, and assessment of the co-curriculum. She has published five books on assessing student learning and outcomes-based assessment program review.
Peter Ewell is the vice president at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS). His work focuses on assessing institutional effectiveness and the outcomes of college. He has directed many projects, including initiatives funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the National Institute for Education, and The Pew Charitable Trusts. He has consulted with over 375 colleges and universities and more than 30 state or national governments. He has authored seven books and numerous articles on the topic of improving undergraduate instruction through assessment.
Adrianna Kezar, associate professor for higher education, University of Southern California. Previously she served as editor of the ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Series and as an administrative associate for the vice president for student affairs and coordinator for the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. She has published a number of books, including Organizing for Collaboration (Jossey-Bass), Rethinking Leadership Practices in a Complex, Multicultural and Global World (Stylus Press), and Creating Organizational Learning in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass); and she serves on the editorial boards for The Journal of Higher Education, The Journal of College Student Development, Change, and The ERIC Review.
Jillian Kinzie, Ph.D., associate director, Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and the NSSE Institute for Effective Educational Practice, coordinates research and project activities to facilitate the use of student engagement data to promote educational effectiveness. She co-authored Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter (2005); One Size Does Not Fit All: Traditional and Innovative Models of Student Affairs Practice (2006), and Piecing Together the Student Success Puzzle (2007); and she serves on the editorial board for the Journal of College Student Development, on the Board of Contributors of About Campus, and on the Advisory Board of the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience.
Ralph A. Wolff, president and executive director of the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, was appointed in 1996, after serving as associate executive director from 1981-1995. Wolff is responsible for setting goals, priorities, and policy for the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities. As executive director, he coordinated the extensive process leading to the 2001 Handbook of Accreditation. Prior to joining WASC, Wolff was the founder and director of planning of the Antioch School of Law, dean of the Graduate School of Education at Antioch, and a law professor at the University of Dayton.
Barbara Wright, associate director, a well-known and respected national expert on assessment, has extensive experience in accreditation, serving six years as a member of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. She has experience in a variety of higher education administrative positions, and is a frequent consultant on assessment, general education, foreign language instruction, and faculty development. She holds a Ph.D. in German Literature from UC Berkeley and taught for many years at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, prior to her appointment at WASC.
Kathleen Blake Yancey, the Kellogg W. Hunt Professor of English at Florida State University, directs the FSU graduate program in Rhetoric and Composition Studies. She is the author, editor or co-editor of ten scholarly books—including Assessing Writing across the Curriculum (1997), Reflection in the Writing Classroom (1998), and Electronic Portfolios 2.0-- and over 70 chapters and refereed articles. Much of her work focuses on reflection, portfolios, assessment, and the implications of new media and Web 2.0 for learning, teaching, and assessment. With Barbara Cambridge and Darren Cambridge, she co-directs the International Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research (ncepr.org), which has brought together 60 institutions worldwide to document the learning that takes place inside and around electronic portfolios.
